Wasteful Magpies put faith in McLeod
RICARDO Moniz hopes new signing Izale McLeod has brought his shooting boots to Meadow Lane after his side’s wastefulness cost them all three points at home to Accrington.
After hitting the bar in the first half Graham Burke grabbed the game’s first goal 15 minutes from time as he headed home Liam Noble’s cross.
But Noble then saw red for a strong challenge on Josh Windass and Matt Crooks made the extra man count with an 89th minute equaliser.
Earlier in the day Notts County announced they had brought in McLeod from Crawley Town for a six-figure fee, and Magpies manager Moniz is keeping his fingers crossed his new striker can make all the difference.
“We must have had at least ten chances to score early on and we didn’t make the most of them, it’s ridiculous,” he said.
“The players played fantastically at times creating a lot of chances for themselves which lifted the atmosphere in the ground, but in the end we just didn’t reward ourselves for our chances.
“That’s why I’m happy that new signing Izale McLeod is here at the club now.The fans deserve to see us do well and score goals. Without scoring we can’t reach the top of our game.”
Burke came closest to a goal in the first 45 minutes but he saw his fierce shot crash against the bar. After the break Adam Camp- bell and Genaro Snijders were denied by Accrington goalkeeper Jason Mooney only for Burke to head home Noble’s cross with 15 minutes left.
But Notts County were then reduced to ten men and Crooks capitalised, lashing home a bobbling ball with just a minute of normal time remaining.
And Accrington Stanley boss John Coleman was less than impressed with the performance of referee Lee Swabey and his officials.
He said: “I don’t want to harp on about our budget but everyone knows we’ve got the smallest budget so we’re always going to be the littlest team in the league.
“When you’ve got to then put up with competing for scraps off officials, which we did here, it gets a whole lot harder – it was borderline embarrassing.
“In the end he had no choice but to send off their player, it’s a no-brainer. We’ve just got to face facts that we’re a little club that’s never going to get the rub of the green.
“It’s not so much the major decisions, it’s the flow of the game that gets put in the opposition’s favour when you come to places like this, and it’s not right.
“It should be a level playing field and it never is and it never will be. When the referee looks at the video of the game he’ll realise that he has probably had better days.”